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Dutch establishment holds off populist wave

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Dutch establishment holds off populist wave00:10

With 94% of the votes counted, Rutte's Party for Freedom and Democracy, the VVD, was projected to win33 seats in the national parliament out of a total of 150. Wilders' Freedom Party, the PVV, was on course to win 20 seats, only one more than the mainstream Christian Democratic Appeal and D66 parties.

Rutte's party, which lurched to the right in response to the populist wave, won eight fewer seats than in 2012, but the VVD's success staving off the challenge from Wilders was celebrated as a victory.

Wilders, who is staunchly against mass immigration and the European Union, was defiant, claiming he was "part of the winners."

"Rutte uses terrifying words when he says that the elections have put a halt to the wrong type of populist ... (He) has not got rid of me yet," he said.

Relief in Europe

During his speech to supporters, Rutte said many European leaders had already called to congratulate him on his victory.

"I think our influence has been enormous ... Our patriotic spring will continue, will really start. And if they need me or if they need the PVV for talks (on a coalition) then I am happy to take part," he said.

"If not, then they haven't seen the back of me yet."

PVV leader Geert Wilders speaks to the press on election night in The Hague, on March 15.

Netherlands 'deeply divided'

Andre Krouwel, political scientist at the Free University Amsterdam, and owner of election website Kieskompas, said the only conclusion from the election result was that the Dutch were "deeply divided."

"It's very difficult to interpret this election result other than this is a very polarized result, people have abandoned the centrist parties but they have also abandoned the left-wing project ... the left together has 37 seats in the 150-seat parliament," he said.

Krouwel also said Wilders, despite his slight gain of seats, now faced being almost powerless in the new political environment.

"The very vocal minority ... dominated the elections and everybody focused on Wilders. But in the end he's totally impotent to do anything. Nobody wants to coalition with him," he said.

Ballot papers are piled up waiting to be sorted and hand counted at the mayor's office in The Hague on Wednesday.

The final days of the election were dominated by a diplomatic row with Turkey over the Dutch government's refusal to allow Turkish ministers to address political rallies in the Netherlands.

Final results may not be known before Friday, the head of the ANP election service Mark Westerhoff said. There are 22 of 388 municipalities left to report.

When the results are complete, Rutte will begin negotiations to form a government. Potential partners include the GroenLinks (Green left) Party and the Socialist Party, which were poised to win 14 seats each.

Support for the PVDA (Labour) party, which had been Rutte's partner in government, plunged from 38 seats to nine.

In his victory speech, Rutte struck a conciliatory note.

"Now in the next couple of weeks and months it is important to unite the country, we have to make sure that we form a stable government so that the country for the next four years can be governed wisely," he said.

CNN's Lauren Moorhouse reported from The Hague, while Bryony Jones and Laura Smith-Spark wrote from London and Ben Westcott from Hong Kong. CNN's Mick Krever and Atika Shubert contributed to this report from the Netherlands